Old Man River
by suspect tomatoes
Summary: Happy birthday, you foxy grandpa! Ledgeacy one-shot. Edge, Christian, Ted, Randy, Jericho.


**A/N: Well, today's the day. Babe, you're officially in your late thirties. Remember when you first started, and you were twenty-four? Well, now I'm twenty-four, and I started watching you when I was eleven. So… you're old. Really old. AND SO AM I.**

**This is for the man who turned me in a raving lunatic. My heart, and black eyes, appreciate it. Happy birthday, chubby!  
**

I woke up because Adam wasn't beside me and somebody was using a chainsaw in the house. Normally, I wouldn't think anything of it, but Jericho had been acting very _Fatal Attraction_ lately, so the sound of a murdering power tool and no Adam in sight was making me a little uneasy.

After roaming the house with a baseball bat behind my back, ready to take Jericho out, I just happened to pass the open front door, and there was Adam in the driveway, bent over evergreen trunks.

Now, I know I'm not indigenous to Florida, and for that matter, neither is Adam, but… aren't evergreen trees like… a northern thing?

"Adam?"

He turned around and looked at me with his mouth open.

I waved. "It's me. Your girlfriend. You know, the one—"

"Oh." He flashed me a smile. "Hey! How's it going?"

I grimaced, looking at the chainsaw. "Could you turn that off?"

He cocked his hip, his ear. "Hah?"

"TURN THAT OFF!"

He nodded continuously, reaching down to shut the machine. It rumbled out, and all was quiet.

I rubbed at my forehead. Being up before noon wasn't exactly my plan for today. "What are you doing?"

He glanced at the logs in front of him, rumbling his lips. "Well, I figured I could build a tree house. Or something. We could always use firewood, and—"

"Adam, we don't have a fireplace and we live in _Florida_. Where did you even _get _these?"

"I had them shipped down from Canada." He kicked one of them slightly. "I needed something to do."

"So you just said, 'Hey, I might as well build an arc.'"

He kinda smiled.

I took off his sunglasses. "You look tired."

"I'm thirty-seven today." He ran a hand across his face. "I'm old."

"You've _been_ old."

"No, like, I'm _old_." His hat was on backwards, and he pulled it off, fluffing his hair. "I'm really fucking old."

"You're not that old." I took it from him. "And you're still hot so no one's losing."

"My bones hurt."

"So do mine. We're wrestlers, babe, we're supposed to be in pain."

I rolled his shoulders. "I feel like I should be at a retirement home."

"You live in Florida—close enough."

He licked his lips, eyes narrowed, pondering as he stared out at the house. But something struck in his gaze, and he turned quickly, grabbing my arm. "Are you busy?"

"Um, not really—"

"Get dressed."

"_Why_?"

"We're going to buy a new car." He nodded, dragging me along. "Yeah, that's what I need. New wheels. Something… _fresh_."

"_Fresh_? Listen—"

"Yeah. Something wild. Something _yellow_."

"_Yellow_?"

* * *

"Hurry up!"

So after buying the car of his dreams (that I still wasn't entirely convinced if he actually _liked_ it or not, considering his whole 'warped sense of reality' was taking over) Adam decided it would do us both good if we went jogging.

Up a fucking _mountain_.

"Adam, I'm seriously going to _die_—"

"Come _on_! You're thirteen years younger than me, if I can do it, so can you!"

I stopped running, leaning against a tree. You know, because the earth decided to move on its own and I didn't have my seat belt on. "Adam… I smoke… a pack a day…" I inhaled heavily but my lungs didn't necessary agree with that. "_And_ I drink. You… drink herbal tea and… talk to mother nature."

He stopped running, but he kept moving, punching the air, hopping. "Come on, come on, we're almost at the top."

"Where did you find a _mountain_ in the middle of _Tampa_, by the way?"

"The power of nature." He kicked his legs. "Come on, can we go yet?"

"_No_." I bent over, hands on my hips, and just heaved. "Just go on without me, I can't breathe and I might throw up."

Finally he looked concerned, in that Adam way of his, with the crooked mouth and wrinkled forehead. "Are you okay, babe?"

I glared at him. "_Yeah_, I'm just recreationally throwing up my organs."

His hand was on my neck now. "You can sit for a second, if you want."

"Gee, _thanks_." I wrapped my arms around his middle. "How about we just go bang in the forest? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He glanced over that way, mouth twisting a little more. "Well…"

I jiggled his stomach. "Come on. I'll even… uh, put leaves in my hair."

He glanced down, then up at me, eyes almost watery. "Does my stomach do that when I wrestle?"

"Do what?"

"Fucking… _knock out_ the old lady crossing the street?"

"_What_?"

"Do I have a muffin top?" He lifted his sweaty shirt, grimacing. "Oh, Jesus Christ, I thought it was just my pants."

"It—"

He whirled around. "Get on my back. _Now_."

"_What_?"

"Get on my back! If you don't want to run anymore, get on my back."

"_Why_?"

"Because I can't be old _and_ fat. Okay? So shut up and get on."

He was really starting to scare me. But just like a grizzly bear, you can't run away screaming and crying. You just have to nut up and jump on its back. So that's exactly what I did.

And then he was running, puffing and panting, and sweating so much I almost slid the fuck off.

I looked around at the passing scenery. "Didn't they do this in that Twilight movie?"

He grunted. "I wouldn't know."

"Don't lie. You watched it with Jay that one time."

"I did _not_."

"The night you slept over at his house!"

"Like I'm five," he panted, rounding a corner.

"Well, I thought you wanted to be younger."

"Not young enough where it'd be _rape_ for you to bang me."

I frowned slightly. "I suppose you're right. Though I could act like I'm five too, and we could play _doctor_—"

He tried to laugh. "Shut up, would you? You're breaking my concentration."

"That was the same night Jay showed up with vampire bites on his neck. You didn't give them to him, did you?"

He almost tripped. "Are you _serious_?"

"Just testing you." I moved his hair out of my face and looked at his neck, all tight and sweaty and _sexy_. "I could give you vampire bites right now."

"Don't even—_Fuck_!" He buckled and sprawled and I went _flying_, doing a couple of action movie tumbles before I settled in the dirt.

I groaned. "My _back_."

"My fucking ankle!"

I glanced over at Adam's scrunched face. "What happened?"

He glared at me. "You _know_ you can't bite my neck, you fucking whore!"

"_Whoa_—"

"I sprained my ankle." He sat up slightly, hissing, trying to twist it around. "If I tore my Achilles tendon again, I'm tearing yours."

"Can we go back to you calling me a fucking whore? That was _hot_—"

He threw a rock at me. "Come _over_ here, you have to help me up! I can't walk on it."

So I did as I was told, but I wasn't much help, since he was about… Oh, ten inches taller than me. He couldn't even rest on my shoulders, so he just gave up and let me hold his hand.

I helped him as well as I could, but that wasn't much. "Can I drive your new car home?"

He sighed angrily. "I suppose."

"Why'd you say it like that? I'm a good driver!"

"We're not even _talking_ about how you drive right now."

"I'm _good_."

"If there are no poles or guard rails or _people_ around, I suppose that's true."

"Yeah, well at least I don't need cataract glasses, grandpa."

He glared at me. "That was a low blow."

"I _offered_ a low blow earlier but _no_, you had to go _running_—"

* * *

"_Ow, ow_, MacKenzie, you're really more trouble than you're worth—"

"Well, stop being a _bitch_ and maybe—"

"SURPRISE!"

The surprise party. I'd _completely_ forgotten about it. Kaitlyn and Sunny had set it up with me weeks ago, and Jericho was set to come out of a cake that we'd _accidentally_ leave on the side of the road somewhere. Jay was dressed up in a chicken suit, and Randy was just in a plain suit, because there's nothing hotter than that.

Oh, and Ted was there. Doing something. I don't know, I think he had streamers, or a kazoo.

But anyway, they all just jumped out at us like the fucking Wizard of Oz munchkins, and I screamed while Adam just froze.

He gripped my shoulder. "I think I'm having a heart attack."

"You're not having a—"

He pressed a hand to his heart. "Babe. I'm not kidding."

I slapped him. Hard. "You're not having a fucking heart attack! You're not _old enough_ to have a heart attack. Our friends are retards and scared you, _that's all_."

"But—"

"I'm sick of this mid-life crisis bullshit! I'm not healthy enough to keep up with your fucking antics any longer. Just sit down, eat some cake and bitch about being thirty-eight next year. Just _no more young people shit_."

It was quiet for a moment, everyone just staring at us.

Jay tore off the head of his costume, breathing heavily. "Young people shit?"

Adam sighed. "You're right. I was being lame."

"_Totally_ lame."

"I just feel like such a dirty uncle because of my age, and _you_."

"_What_?"

"I don't know, I'm thirty-_seven_ now, that's like…"

I nodded. "_Still_ thirteen years older than me."

He grimaced. "It just sounds…"

"Awesome? Perfect? _Right_? I don't know, man, I'm running out of adjectives."

"If it's any consolation, Jay's sixteen years old than me," Kaitlyn put in.

"And Ted's ten years older than me," Sunny agreed.

"And _my_ girlfriend's twenty-two years younger than _me_."

Everyone turned to look at Jericho.

He grinned. "All right, twenty-_three_."

"_Girlfriend_?"

He put his hands on his hips. "I haven't _completely_ sworn them off."

"Okay. We need to talk about the age difference now. SHE'S SIXTEEN."

"Yeah, but she really knows her stuff—"

Adam put his hand up. "Please. I don't want to talk about this right now. And everyone knows it's not a girl, it's the boy down the street. And he's not your boyfriend, you're _stalking him_, and his mother is going to have _all of us_ arrested if you do anything tonight, so stay away from the liquor and we'll all be okay."

I waited a beat. "Tell 'em, babe."

Kaitlyn turned swiftly toward Jericho. "Wait a minute! You're not even supposed to _be here_!"

"You guys were gonna lock me in a cake or something, I know, but I was spying and thwarted your attempts at keeping me away from my beloved." He batted his eyes at Adam.

Adam just rolled his. "Speaking of cake, is there any? Or presents?"

"You're okay with this now?"

He kinda smiled and put his arm around me. "I guess I just need to accept the fact that I'm getting old_er_. I'm not necessarily old yet, but I'm pushing it."

I pressed my lips to his, hard. "Good for you, babe. Happy birthday."

He laughed as Kaitlyn placed the present from the three of us in front of him. "I mean, it's not like I'm about to _die_."

And then he tore off the wrapping.

I cringed.

His face wasn't exactly priceless, because it wasn't really a certain emotion, it was just… an extreme expression. Shock, anger, amusement, acceptance…

He nodded tightly, turning it around. "A _tomb_stone."

"It's real, too!" Kait said excitedly. "You can use it when you kick the bucket."

He patted the top of it. "And it says, 'I never banged Jay, I swear.'"

"We couldn't think of anything else."

He smiled at me. "Maybe I should make good use of it right now and just _keel over_."

I frowned. "It was supposed to be funny."

"Well, to be honest." He grinned like an asshole. "Joke's getting a little _old_."

**A/N: And so are you, babe. Love you, hope you're not having a mid-life crisis! Review.**


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